A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2

by Henry Charles Lea

The plans of Valdés were now sufficiently advanced for him to seek the papal authorization which alone was lacking, and his method to obtain this was characteristically insidious. The Suprema addressed, September 9th, to Paul IV a relation of its labors in discovering and prosecuting the Lutheran heretics. There was skilful exaggeration of the danger impending from a movement, the extent of which could not be known, and it was pointed out that sympathy with the sectaries might be entertained by officials of the Inquisition itself, by the Ordinaries and the consultors; so that extraordinary powers were asked to arrest and judge and relax those suspected or guilty, even though they were persons holding a secular or pontifical and ecclesiastical dignity or belonging to any religious or other Order.[158] As the Inquisition already had jurisdiction over all but bishops (it had not hesitated to arrest and try the Dominican Fray Domingo de Rojas) the self-evident object of this was to obtain surreptitiously, under cover of the word “pontifical,” some general expression that might be used to deprive Carranza of his right to trial by the pope. The Dean of Oviedo, a nephew of Valdés, was sent to Rome as a special agent to procure the desired brief; whether royal sanction for this application was obtained does not appear, but it probably was not, at least at this stage.

ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA

Carranza meanwhile had been vainly endeavoring to get copies of the censures on his book in order to answer them. He appealed earnestly to his friends in Philip’s court and in Rome but, without awaiting their replies, he pursued his policy of submission and, on September 21st, the day of Charles’s death, he wrote to Sancho López de Otálora, a member of the Suprema, that he consented to the prohibition of his work, provided this was confined to Spain and that his name was not mentioned.[159] In this and what followed he has been accused of weakness, but it is difficult to see what other course lay open to him. He doubtless still considered his episcopal consecration a guarantee for his personal safety, while his reputation for orthodoxy could best be conserved by not entering into a fruitless contest with a power irresistible in its chosen field of action—a contest, moreover, which would have cost him the royal favor that was his main reliance.

In pursuance of this policy he even descended to attempting to propitiate Melchor Cano by offering to do whatever he would recommend. Cano subsequently asserted, with customary mendacity, that Carranza would have averted his fate had he adopted any of the means which he devised and advised to save him, but it is difficult to imagine what more he could have done.[160] Towards the close of November he wrote to Valdés and the Suprema and to other influential persons professing his submission. He explained the reasons which had led him to write his book in the vernacular after commencing it in Latin; it could readily be suppressed for, on reaching Valladolid, he had withdrawn the edition from the printer; there were no copies in the bookshops and what he had brought with him he would surrender, while the dozen or so that had been sent to Spain could easily be called in as the recipients were all known. Then, on December 9th, he proposed to the Suprema that the book should be prohibited in Spanish and be returned to him for correction and translation into Latin.[161] Had the real object of Valdés been the ostensible one of preserving the faith, this would have amply sufficed; the book would have been suppressed and the public humiliation of the Archbishop of Toledo, so distinguished for his services to religion, would have been an amply deterrent warning to all indiscreet theologians. It was a not unnatural burst of indignation when, in a letter to Domingo de Soto, November 14th, he bitterly pointed out how the heretics would rejoice to know that Fray Bartolomé de Miranda was treated in Spain as he had treated them in England and Flanders and that, after he had burnt them to enforce the doctrines of his book, it was pronounced in Spain unfit to be read.[162] Carranza’s submission brought no result save to encourage his enemies, who put him off with vague replies while awaiting the success of their application to the pope.

Meanwhile he had reached Toledo, October 13th, and had applied himself actively to his duties. He was rigid in the performance of divine service, he visited prisons, hospitals and convents, he put an end to the sale of offices and charging fees for licences, he revised the fee-bill of his court, he enforced the residence of parish priests and was especially careful in the distribution of preferment—in short he was a practical as well as theoretical reformer. His charity also was boundless, for he used to say that all he needed was a Dominican habit and that whatever God gave him was for the poor. Thus during his ten months of incumbency, he distributed more than eighty thousand ducats in marrying orphans, redeeming captives, supporting widows, sending students to universities and in gifts to hospitals.[163] He was a model bishop, and the resolute fidelity with which the chapter of Toledo supported his cause to the end shows the impression made on a body which, in Spanish churches, was usually at odds with its prelate.

He had likewise not been idle in obtaining favorable opinions of his book from theologians of distinction. In view of the rumors of inquisitorial action, there was risk in praising it, yet nearly all those prominent in Spanish theology bore testimony in its favor. The general view accorded virtually with that of Pedro Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, than whom no one in the Spanish hierarchy stood higher for learning and piety. The book, he said, was without error and, being in Castilian, was especially useful for parish priests unfamiliar with Latin, wherefore it should be extensively circulated. It was true that there were occasional expressions which, taken by themselves, might on their face seem to be erroneous, but elsewhere it was seen that they must be construed in a Catholic sense. To this effect recorded themselves Domingo and Pedro de Soto, men of the highest reputation, Garrionero Bishop of Almería, Blanco of Orense, Cuesta of Leon, Delgado of Lugo and numerous others.[164] If some of these men belied themselves subsequently and aided in giving the finishing blow to their persecuted brother, we can estimate the pressure brought to bear on them.

ARCHBISHOP CARRANZA

Valdés speedily utilized the power of the Inquisition to check these appreciations of the Commentaries. When, at the University of Alcalá, the rector, the chancellor, and twenty-two doctors united in declaring the work to be without error or suspicion of error, save that some incautious expressions, disconnected from the context, might be mistaken by hasty readers, Valdés muzzled it and all other learned bodies and individuals by a letter saying that it had come to his notice that learned men of the university had been examining books and giving their opinions. As this produced confusion and contradiction respecting the Index which the Inquisition was preparing, all persons, colleges and universities were forbidden to censure or give an opinion concerning any book without first submitting it to the Suprema, and this under pain of excommunication and a fine of two hundred ducats on each and every one concerned.[165] It was impossible to contend with an adversary armed with such weapons. Not content with this, the rector of the university, Diego Sobaños, was prosecuted by the tribunal of Valladolid for the part he had taken in the matter; he was reprimanded, fined and absolved ad cautelam. Similar action was taken against the more prominent of those who had expressed themselves favorably and who, for the most part, were forced to retract.[166] The Inquisition played with loaded dice.

Dean Valdés of Oviedo meanwhile had succeeded in his mission to Rome, aided, as Raynaldus assures us, by the express request of Philip, though this is more than doubtful. The brief was dated January 7, 1559; it was addressed to Valdés and recited that, as there were in Spain some prelates suspected of Lutheranism, he was empowered for two years from the receipt of the brief, with the advice of the Suprema, to make investigation and, if sufficient proof were found against any one and there was good reason to apprehend his flight, to arrest and keep him in safe custody, but as soon as possible the pope was to be informed of it and the prisoner was to be sent to him with all the evidence and papers in the case.[167] With the exception of the provision against expected flight, this was merely in accordance with the received practice in the case of bishops, but it was the entering wedge and we shall see how its limitations were disregarded.

The brief was received April 8th. In place of complying with it and sending Carranza to Rome with the evidence that had been collecting for nearly a year, a formal trial was secretly commenced. The fiscal presented a clamosa or indictment, on May 6th, asking for Carranza’s arrest and the sequestration of his property, “for having preached, written and dogmatized many errors of Luther.” The evidence was duly laid before calificadores, or censors, who reported accordingly and, on the 13th, there was drawn up a summons to appear and answer to the demand of the fiscal. Before proceeding further, in an affair of such magnitude, it was felt that the assent was required of Philip, who was still in Flanders.[168] As recently as April 4th he had replied encouragingly to an appeal from the persecuted prelate. “I have not wanted to go forward in the matter of your book, about which you wrote to me, until the person whom you were sending should arrive; he has spoken with me today. I had already done something of what is proper in this business. Not to detain the courier who goes with the good news of the conclusion of peace, I do not wish to enlarge in replying to you, but I shall do so shortly and meanwhile I earnestly ask you to make no change in what you have done hitherto and to have recourse to no one but to me, for it would be in the highest degree disadvantageous.”[169] Philip evidently thought that only Carranza’s book and not his person was concerned, that the affair was of no great importance and his solicitude was chiefly to prevent any appeal to Rome, a matter in which he fully shared the intense feeling of his predecessors. When Carranza ordered his envoy to Flanders, Fray Hernando de San Ambrosio, to proceed to Rome and secure an approbation of the Commentaries, he replied, April 19th, that all his friends at the court earnestly counselled against; it had been necessary to assure Philip of the falsity of the reports that he had done so, whereupon the king had expressed his satisfaction and had said that any other course would have displeased him.[170]